 Child Poverty in Britain: Past Lessons and Future ProspectsNational Institute Economic Review, 2011, vol. 218, issue 1, R7-R19 Abstract: The previous Labour government pledged to abolish child poverty and introduced a range of welfare reforms that emphasised the role of work as the primary route out of poverty. This culminated in the Child Poverty Act (2010) which commits all future governments to the abolition of child poverty. This paper examines New Labour's record on child poverty and examines the factors responsible for its change. While the welfare reforms of the late 1990s did increase work among families with children, this didn't translate into large falls in child poverty. Those entering work still relied on substantial increases in government benefits to lift them over the poverty line. The current coalition government has reaffirmed its commitment to the Child Poverty Act and is also emphasising the role of work. The lessons of the past decade cast severe doubt on whether the current coalition government strategy of promoting work will be any more successful in reducing child poverty. With planned benefit cuts in the pipeline we could well experience some substantial increases in child poverty over the coming years. Keywords: Child poverty; welfare reform; poverty decomposition (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:niesru:v:218:y:2011:i:1:p:r7-r19 Access Statistics for this article More articles in National Institute Economic Review from National Institute of Economic and Social Research Contact information at EDIRC. |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.